LUY-Development

Category: Fringe News Feed

  • Oystercatchers, known for sharp bills and beady eyes, are making a comeback thanks to conservation


    SOUTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. (AP) — On a pristine Rhode Island beach teeming with noisy seabirds, a group of biologists armed with nets sneak up on a pair of American oystercatcher chicks.

    But just as they move in to capture them, one of the football-size birds, with bright-orange bills and long legs, scampers into a coastal salt pond. The other briefly takes to the air, sending the team running across the mile-and-a-half-long (2.4-kilometer-long) beach in pursuit.

    “There is a problem. They can fly,” Alan Kneidel, a senior conservation biologist with the environmental group Manomet Conservation Sciences, said as he watched the team go after the chicks.

    Eventually, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists tracked down both birds. They bundled them each into white pillow cases and gingerly carried them to a sand dune where body measurements were taken and bands clipped onto their long, peach-colored legs.

    Birds starting to recover

    The banding in the 787-acre (318-hectare) Trustom Pond National Wildlife Refuge is part of a nationwide effort to restore the oystercatcher’s population along the coasts of the Americas. The birds were largely wiped out in New England by the turn of the 20th century due to hunting and egg collecting but their numbers are rising.

    About $10 million was raised over a decade and 35 coastal organizations in 16 states joined in the effort. Much of the campaign focused on educating beachgoers about the presence of the quirky birds known for their piercing calls and habit of using their razor sharp bills to crack open oysters and mussels. Measures were also implemented to protect their ground nesting sites from predators and pets on beaches, sand dunes, salt marshes or tide wrack deposits.

    From 2008 to 2023, oystercatcher numbers increased by 45% along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Their recovery is especially significant, given a 2023 study found that most shorebird populations in North America were declining.

    “It’s amazing and it’s a great conservation success story,” said Maureen Durkin, a federal wildlife biologist who led the banding effort and works at the Rhode Island National Wildlife Refuge Complex.

    “It does really demonstrate how much you can accomplish when there is a dedicated group of partners that can come together and identify the needs of the species and implement conservation actions,” she said, adding that it also showed conserving imperiled species “is not easy and takes a sustained and committed effort.”

    Targeting threats

    Kneidel said a critical part of the conservation plan was determining that “chick survival was the big thing driving the declines.” Then, individually-tailored plans were drawn up from organizations in the American Oystercatcher Working Group, which was led by Manomet’s Shiloh Schulte, a conservation biologist and field scientist who died last year in a helicopter crash in Alaska while on a mission to protect shorebirds. His initial aerial survey showed their numbers had declined by double-digits.

    “At one site, it might be recreational disturbance, at another site it might be predators, at another site it might be sea level rise or loss of dune structure that’s causing overwash events that are causing nest failure,” Kneidel said as he walked along the rocky Moonstone Beach, the sky filled with squeaking, least terns.

    On Martha’s Vineyard, a low-lying fence with chicken wire is installed seasonally at the entrance of a key breeding site for oystercatchers and other seabirds and shorebirds, which has kept skunks and raccoons that eat their eggs off the beach. Colorful signs have also been installed educating the public about oystercatchers.

    Focused attention on oystercatchers

    The birds also benefit from federal protections given to piping plovers, a threatened shorebird that nests in some of the same areas. During the nesting season of piping plovers, vehicles and dogs are limited or banned near beach nesting sites.

    “With a little bit of focused effort and attention on this really charismatic bird, you can teach the public how to share the shore,” said Luanne Johnson, a wildlife biologist who founded the nonprofit BiodiversityWorks, one of the groups working on the oystercatcher’s recovery. The island was the first place to have nesting oystercatchers in Massachusetts when they began to recover and has seen the numbers of breeding pairs increase 77% since 2009.

    In South Carolina, nearly 30 breeding sites are roped off to protect nesting habitat. Georgia and North Carolina also rope off breeding sites along with trapping and euthanizing predators like foxes, raccoons and coyotes during breeding season.

    “If you focus conservation efforts on a species, especially before it becomes endangered to the point that you’re considering listing, you can actually sort of head off trouble at the pass,” said Lindsay Addison, a coastal biologist with Audubon North Carolina, adding the state’s breeding pairs have increased nearly 20% to 403. Some birds, like Dark Green 06 and Yellow 25, were banded as far back as 2004 and have become minor celebrities.

    Ted Simons, a retired emeritus professor at North Carolina State University who began studying the birds on North Carolina’s Outer Banks in 1995, said their recovery was a testament to the species’ resilience. He noted American oystercatchers have been found nesting on rooftops in the United States and other oystercatcher species in Europe are nesting in pastures and eating worms. One pair, he recalled, was found nesting in a bus station pothole in Iceland.

    “If these were really highly specialized birds that needed an exact prescription for survival, that would have been harder,” Simons said. “But what we found is that these birds are incredibly adaptive.”

    Climate change, weakened protections pose dangers

    Despite their strong recovery, threats remain.

    Chief among the dangers is climate change that has led to rising seas and erosion washing out oystercatcher nests. That has prompted states such as Georgia to build elevated nesting platforms of oystershells for the birds and use dredged material from shipping channels to create and maintain nesting islands. Along the Cape Fear River in North Carolina, Audubon is replenishing shell rakes — beds of old oyster shells where the oystercatchers nest.

    “ Climate change, sea level rise, it’s a big challenge not only for oystercatchers but for all kinds of interests on the coast,” Addison said. “There’s going to be loss of habitat due to sea level rise so we have to make sure that we do what we can to provide the habitat that we can so they can get through this next bottleneck.”

    There are also concerns that changes this month to the Endangered Species Act could impact nesting sites, especially where state protections are weak. Environmental groups, which sued Tuesday to block the changes, fear breeding grounds could be disturbed by everything from vehicle traffic to unchecked development.

    The changes would allow oil and gas drilling, mining, logging and other development on critical wildlife habitats so long as the animals themselves aren’t killed or injured. Environmentalists warned the move could cause some species to go extinct by opening the door to habitat destruction.

    “It’s a direct attack on the protections that have allowed many of these shorebird species to recover,” Kneidel said.

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.


  • Far above the Earth, NASA’s Apollo lunar lander put astronauts on the moon


    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — America’s most daring, extraordinary feat — landing astronauts on the moon — remains the pinnacle of achievement by anyone anywhere. Ever.

    And the lunar lander — a groundbreaking piece of America — is up there still, far away.

    NASA put 12 men on the lunar surface more than half a century ago, beginning with Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. The two became the first humans to explore another world when their lander, bearing the patriotic name Eagle, settled onto the Sea of Tranquility on July 20, 1969. “The Eagle has landed,” Armstrong radioed as a spellbound Earth erupted in cheers and tears.

    Just 6½ hours later came the most momentous and memorable line of all. Armstrong descended the ladder and stepped onto the gray, gritty dust: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

    At 23 feet (7 meters), the Apollo lunar module stood a little taller than a giraffe and looked just as ungainly. It had two sections: a lower descent stage with four legs and an upper stage that housed the crew. The descent stage got the moonwalkers to the lunar surface and remained behind as the men blasted back into lunar orbit.

    All six descent stages will be there for perpetuity, clumped around the equator on the moon’s near side.

    NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and other countries’ satellites around the moon have photographed them. Resembling whitish splotches from orbit, the descent stages pinpoint the touchdown sites not only of Eagle but Intrepid, Antares, Falcon, Orion and Challenger. Its moon landing nixed, Apollo 13’s lunar module Aquarius was turned into a lifeboat that got its crew of three safely home. The ascent stages are scattered all over the moon — smashed to bits, no longer needed once the moonwalkers were back inside the command module. Some speculate, however, that Apollo 11’s ascent stage might still be orbiting.

    For NASA’s new Artemis program, private businesses are handling lunar lander details and operations. Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are scrambling to get their landers ready for a docking test in low-Earth orbit with a NASA crew capsule next year. If Artemis III’s docking rehearsal goes well, NASA could launch its first moon landing with astronauts since Apollo as early as 2028. SpaceX’s Starship is so tall that moonwalkers will need a 10-floor elevator to descend to the lunar surface. The Apollo astronauts used a nine-rung ladder.

    On that long-ago day, President Richard Nixon said in a phone call to Armstrong and Aldrin as the pair stood alongside the U.S. flag they had just planted 240,000 miles (385,000 kilometers) from home. Said Nixon: “For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one.”

    ___

    Part of a recurring series, “American Objects,” marking the 250th anniversary of the United States. For more American objects, click here. For more stories on the anniversary, click here. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.


  • Wildfire smoke kills tens of thousands of people a year. Here’s how it attacks the body


    Smoke from wildfires — which are burning more of the Northern Hemisphere as Earth warms — attacks nearly every system in the human body, killing tens of thousands of people a year, numerous medical studies show.

    It attacks the body immediately, spiking asthma cases with increased ambulance runs within hours, swamps emergency rooms in a day or so with people suffering from heart attacks and other cardiovascular and lung issues, as well as mental health issues, doctors and scientists told The Associated Press.

    Smoke also harms pregnant women, increasing the risk of premature births and low-weight babies who could have breathing problems the rest of their lives, doctors and studies say. And then there are long-term risks connecting prolonged smoke and other air pollution exposure to some cancers and dementia.

    After huge global fires in 2018 and 2019, the medical and science communities started looking at the health effects from the smoke with “more and more studies coming out finding that there’s all types of impacts that may not have been so obvious before,” said Dr. Mary Johnson, a Harvard School of Public Health environmental health scientist.

    Smoke causes inflammation by triggering the body’s immune system to go into overtime to fight the irritant. Scientists have found it can harm the brain, the skin and men’s sperm, with almost no system of the body spared, Johnson said. People over 60 become more prone to stroke in wildfire smoke, she said.

    “Wildfire smoke is the toxic product of combustion of whatever burned,” which could include houses and cars, said Dr. Courtney Howard, an emergency room physician, chair of the Global Climate and Health Alliance and president-elect of the Canadian Medical Association.

    “So really it’s a big giant toxic soup of particles and gases.”

    Scientists have counted at least 1,000 toxins in wildfire smoke, according to Colorado State University environmental toxicologist Luke Montrose.

    “If I gave you a list, you would recognize some of these as being very bad, oftentimes associated with the burning of diesel fuel or cigarette smoke, things like formaldehyde or volatile organic compounds,” Montrose said. “So just the smoke itself can be bad.”

    Rising global temperatures from climate change means more fires

    So far this year, more than 5,740 square miles (more than 14,860 square kilometers) of the United States has burned from wildfires, which is 31% more than the average of the previous 10 years on this date, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. The amount of U.S. land burned each year in the 2020s — averaged out over a decade — is now more than twice what it was 30 years ago.

    Europe saw a record high amount of land burned in 2025, Canada has had several record or near-record fire years in the 2020s and the Arctic recently has had unprecedented levels of burning.

    “Wildfires are becoming more frequent and intense because of climate change, and when a fire happens, you have smoke,” said Colleen Reid, a University of Colorado geographic health professor.

    Most of the biggest particles in wildfire smoke fall close to where a blaze is burning, while the smallest particles — the ones that scientists say do the most damage — travel the farthest. In a typical wildfire, the nasty particles that harm human health are about the size of one micron, Reid said.

    Inside the body, particles attack

    First those particles have to get by your body’s protection, mainly nose hairs and mucus, then they get into your lungs and from there the bloodstream.

    Montrose said the particles can be coated in lots of chemicals and have large surface areas. That triggers the body’s defense system to “send signals to other cells that say, ‘We have a problem. We need to mount an immune response to this.’ And that’s where you get your acute effect or your effect within minutes, hours or even that day.” It’s mostly happening in the hearts and lungs, he said.

    And many people die.

    On average 24,100 people died each year in the Lower 48 states between 2006 and 2020 due to long-term exposure to tiny particles from wildfire smoke, according to a study this year in the journal Science Advances. A Stanford study projects that U.S. wildfire smoke deaths will increase with climate change and by midcentury hit an annual cost of $244 billion in terms of the economic value the government puts on each life.

    On a global scale, wildfire smoke particles cause 677,745 deaths annually, with almost 39% of them children under age 5, according to a 2021 study that combined observations, studies on how the body responds to the particles and computer models to calculate the toll.

    The biggest nonlethal effects have to do with the way people breathe, especially those with asthma.

    “We did a study here in 2014 after we had about two-and-a-half months of smoke off and on, because we’re in the subarctic so we’re warming at triple the global rate, so in a way we’re kind of canaries in the coal mine of the health impacts of climate change,” Howard said on a clear day from Yellowknife, Canada. “We found a full doubling of emergency department visits for asthma and about 50% increase in pneumonia.”

    “Even in individuals that don’t have asthma, the air can be so irritating that you could have difficulty with your respiratory system regardless,” Johnson said, “whether it’s coughing, whether it’s chest tightness, whether it’s sore throat, headache.”

    There are ways to minimize the risks

    Studies have linked smoke to people having more trouble with decision making and other cognitive issues. People come to the emergency room depressed, Howard said. That’s why it’s important to find a place with clean air — including designated shelters or libraries — to get a break from the smoke and possibly exercise, she said.

    Experts suggest people wear high-quality masks when outdoors, even though they don’t provide perfect protection. Inside, check windows and doors for seals, invest in a good ventilation system and check air filters, they say.

    “Staying away from the smoke is No. 1 if you can,” Johnson said.

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.


  • SpaceX Starship launch aborted on the pad at the last moment


    SpaceX’s mega Starship rocket came within a second or so from blasting off on a test flight Thursday, but some of the engines failed to ignite, triggering a launch abort amid billowing clouds of smoke and vapor.

    Elon Musk, the company’s founder and CEO, said two engines will be replaced “to be confident of a good flight” before sending Starship from Texas on a space-skimming journey halfway around the world. It will be the 13th flight for Starship, which at 407 feet (124 meters) tall with 33 main engines is the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket.

    SpaceX’s launch webcast showed the start of engine ignition three seconds before the planned liftoff, viewed from a drone high above the pad. Although the company did not elaborate, onscreen data showed four engines not firing, with the remaining 29 engines immediately shutting down and keeping the rocket anchored to the pad. It was the first time a full-scale Starship experienced a last-second abort like this.

    The launch team immediately began draining the fuel from the rocket.

    “Most probable launch timing is early next week,” Musk said via X.

    Everything was going SpaceX’s way, even the weather, until the partial engine ignition. In the end, the rocket’s automatic launch system worked as planned by halting everything. Too few operating engines could have doomed the launch. Some earlier Starship flights ended in explosive fireballs.

    Elon Musk’s company had newest, most advanced Starlinks aboard

    Twenty of SpaceX’s newest and most advanced Starlinks were on board Starship for release during the planned hourlong flight from Starbase, the company’s hub near the Texas-Mexico border. The internet satellites were going to try communicating with Starlinks already in orbit while taking photos of Starship’s heat shield.

    Neither the first-stage booster nor spacecraft were meant to be recovered, with both ending up in the sea.

    The rocket’s automatic launch system worked as planned by halting everything. Too few operating engines could have resulted in a failed launch. Some earlier Starship flights, for example, ended in explosive fireballs.

    World’s biggest rocket is key to putting astronauts back on the moon

    NASA is counting on Starship to land its astronauts on the moon in the next few years. The space agency has hired SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to build and fly the lunar landers that will return humanity to the surface of the moon after an absence of more than half a century.

    Both companies need to have their landers — Starship and Blue Moon — ready to fly by next year so that the newly named Artemis III crew can practice docking their capsule with them in orbit around Earth. The mission after that — Artemis IV planned for no earlier than 2028 — would use one of those landers to take two astronauts to the moon’s south polar region.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.


  • Weather conditions again brought devastating floods to a vulnerable swath of Texas


    WASHINGTON (AP) — Long before sunrise in Texas, a shallow spot of the Guadalupe River rose above the height of a two-story house in just five hours on Thursday, sending a rush of water through a region still weary from last summer’s fatal flash floods.

    The dangerous flooding for a second consecutive year set off hundreds of high-water rescues, washed out roads and killed at least two people, authorities said. Relentless downpours served as another frightening reminder of the flood-prone Texas Hill Country, following what experts say was fueled this time by the right mix of air and lots of available moisture.

    “Last year, it was one big wave that came through. And it wiped everything out, and then it receded, and then we could deal with the damage. This time, we’re on day three of heavy rain and everything keeps continuing to rise, and it’s expected to rain today and tonight,” said Suzanne Sutphin Gschwind of Kerrville, where some of the worst flooding took place.

    Hot weather over the middle of the continental United States ensured storms that formed would move slowly, and rounds of rain over roughly the last three days at times reached several inches an hour. The flooding is “about as bad as it gets” — conditions that are typically rare, said Bob Oravec, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

    “Obviously, something like this doesn’t occur every year, but it has occurred over two years in a row and it has occurred over a region that is prone to flash flooding by its topography,” Oravec said.

    Nearly 1 trillion gallons of water fell on the three hardest-hit counties in Texas over three days — Uvalde County alone got more rain in that period than California has seen over the last month, according to Ryan Maue, former chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.

    Flooding over the Fourth of July weekend last year killed more than 100 people, including roughly two dozen children and camp counselors at Camp Mystic, a now-shuttered Christian camp for girls. These storms dumped rain on a wider area, overlapping with some of the places where floodwaters overturned cars, ripped down trees and sent rescuers hustling to save lives last July.

    A local official in Travis County, which includes Austin, said people were trapped on barn roofs and in trees. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said drones and helicopters were airborne for rescues.

    “We are looking at every square inch of the entire area for anybody who may be stranded anywhere. And there will be help coming very rapidly to whoever may be displaced, wherever they are,” Abbott said.

    The flood in Texas Hill Country

    The rain hit Texas Hill Country, a part of central and south Texas with steep terrain. Shallow soil covers limestone hills that have been soaked for days. Instead of the land absorbing the water, it shoots into rivers with steep banks.

    That causes water to rise fast, a dangerous scenario that catches people by surprise.

    When rivers rise so fast “it’s almost like a river tsunami,” said Tyler Roys, a senior meteorologist with the forecasting company AccuWeather. These conditions are so deadly because water is heavy and moves quickly. Just one cubic foot of water — imagine a box a bit larger than the size of a basketball — weighs about 62 pounds (28 kilograms).

    Compared to last year’s flood, the rain fell hard, but in some places it wasn’t quite as intense and rivers in many places didn’t rise quite as quickly, Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon said. Plus, the previous days of rain previewed the flood threat.

    “This one is producing greater overall precipitation totals, but it is mostly doing it with lower rain rates. They are still fairly high, but they aren’t as high as they were last year,” he said.

    While swollen from rainfall, so far Guadalupe River levels have largely remained below record levels, some of which were reached during last year’s deadly floods. The river did surpass last year’s mark at the small community of Comfort, rising to 37 feet (11.3 meters) early Thursday, a mark 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) higher than it reached last year. At its height then, water weighing as much as the Empire State Building flowed downstream roughly every minute.

    The river’s record at this spot is 42.3 feet (12.9 meters) set in 1869.

    Climate change and forecasting

    It is difficult, especially as storms are happening, to know whether climate change has made the event more likely or worse.

    Oravec said that the conditions that created this storm — hot air that steers and slows storms — have long occurred, but that climate change could make these conditions more common. A warmer atmosphere also has the potential to hold more moisture and heavier rains.

    Last year’s flooding did raise awareness of the dangers floods create, especially when they occur at night, Oravec said.

    “I think overall it has been a good forecast. The effects are catastrophic, but the signal was there for potential heavy rainfall,” he said.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia and Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment


  • Trump officials want to make testosterone drugs easier to prescribe. Is that a good idea?


    WASHINGTON (AP) — Officials under President Donald Trump want to make it easier for men to get a prescription for testosterone, the latest shift in a decades-long debate over the benefits and risks of replacing the hormone that affects sex drive, mood and other health factors.

    The move, backed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other top officials, aligns with the advice of many online influencers and podcasters, including men’s health gurus who tout the hormone as a way to boost muscle and energy. On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the military would begin screening for low testosterone and offering the hormone as a way to help troops operate at their “absolute best.”

    The notion of testosterone as an all-purpose elixir for strength and vitality is not supported by the science. But medical experts say a decade of new research has bolstered the case for testosterone’s benefits for sexual health while allaying concerns about its impact on the heart.

    “Many providers have been trained for years that these were real issues, and they were scared to get a testosterone reading from a patient or offer them testosterone therapy,” said Dr. Justin Dubin, a urologist at Baptist Health Miami Cancer Institute.

    Last year, the Food and Drug Administration removed a bold safety warning about possible heart risks with testosterone pills, gels, injections and patches, based on recent data that showed no increase in those problems.

    Last month, the agency proposed rewriting prescribing instructions to clear the way for using testosterone against age-related symptoms, such as low libido and erectile dysfunction. Currently the label emphasizes that the hormone is only approved for abnormally low testosterone levels caused by serious medical conditions or injury.

    But experts who prescribe the drug say those patients are a small segment of people seeking help.

    “The majority of people we see in our office are regular men complaining of these common symptoms because they’re dramatically affecting their quality of life,” said Dr. Helen Bernie, a urologist and director of sexual health at Indiana University.

    Testosterone use has evolved over decades

    Testosterone was first approved in the 1950s to treat hypogonadism, a condition defined by low testosterone levels caused by medical problems affecting the testes or other organs.

    Testosterone declines naturally with age and can effect sexual function, mood, bone density and other measures. The question of how to diagnose and treat men with those issues has long been debated by researchers.

    “These symptoms overlap with symptoms of human aging in men, so there’s a high risk of misdiagnosis and that’s led to the controversy” said Dr. Shalender Bhasin, of Harvard Medical School, who has co-authored several recent testosterone studies and guidelines.

    Bhasin says increased willingness to prescribe testosterone reflects growing acceptance of the seriousness of men’s sexual health problems, beginning with the introduction of Viagra for erectile dysfunction in the 1990s.

    Bhasin helped write the Endocrine Society’s current guidelines for testosterone, which recommend discussing testosterone with men who have documented symptoms and two blood test results confirming low hormone levels. One recent study by Michigan researchers found that just 12% of men getting a prescription met that criteria.

    Prescriptions previously soared, despite little evidence

    The potential for overprescribing testosterone is real and helped lead to current restrictions.

    In the early 2010s, drugmakers spent millions on TV ads for gels, patches and other products promising relief from “low T,” including a laundry list of symptoms like fatigue, muscle loss, brain fog and weight gain.

    By 2013, the drugs were generating more than $2 billion in sales annually, despite lacking FDA approval for most of the issues described. Doctors remain free to prescribe drugs off-label, or for unapproved uses, and many men today continue taking testosterone because they believe it improves energy, mood and appearance.

    In 2015, the FDA hit drugmakers with a double whammy: They had to clarify that their drugs weren’t approved for routine problems and also add a boxed warning about possible heart risks.

    FDA scrutiny led to new research

    The FDA now says updated data warrants relaxing the restrictions.

    An FDA-mandated study published in 2023 followed 5,000 men with a history of heart disease, with half receiving daily testosterone gel and the other half getting a sham drug. After two years there was no difference in heart attack, stroke and related problems between the two groups.

    A series of studies by the National Institutes of Health also clarified the benefits of the hormone. Results from nearly 800 older men showed testosterone therapy improved erectile dysfunction, libido and other sexual measures and had a small effect on mood. There was little or no improvement in other measures like fatigue, memory or overall well-being.

    The recent testosterone studies are the largest ever conducted, but Bhasin — who helped lead both efforts — says more research is needed on longer-term effects.

    “I think FDA’s label changes are very welcome and they are bringing us a big step forward,” said Bhasin, who also co-authored the Endocrine Society’s guidelines. “But I think there’s a lot more to be done to better define the safety and efficacy.”

    In recent comments submitted to the FDA, the Endocrine Society recommended studies of 15 to 20 years to assess conditions that evolve slowly, including prostate cancer, which remains a concern when prescribing testosterone.

    Some men should not get testosterone

    Experts agree that men who are hoping to have children in the near future shouldn’t take the hormone. Getting testosterone from a pill or gel shuts off the body’s natural process for making the hormone.

    “It can stop the signal from your brain to your testicles to make testosterone, and so you stop making sperm,” Dubin said. “That can compromise fertility.”

    Most guidelines also recommend careful consideration for men who have had prostate cancer or are at risk of the disease, given lingering questions about whether hormone therapy hastens tumor growth. But guidelines may soon change.

    The FDA has proposed new language that would only suggest that men whose prostate cancer has spread to other parts of the body should avoid testosterone.

    Be wary of online promotions

    Dietary supplements promoted online to boost testosterone should be avoided because they aren’t FDA approved and probably don’t work.

    FDA-approved testosterone drugs come in a variety of forms. Gels and pills generally need to be used daily. Injections, patches and implantable pellets can last for weeks or several months.

    Many of these medications are available through telehealth services, though accessing them that way can have risks.

    A 2022 paper by Dubin found that only 1 in 7 online prescribing companies asked basic screening questions, including whether men planned to have children. And most of the companies did not have a testing threshold for whether patients actually had low testosterone.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.


  • CDC nominee says she won’t betray science — while declining to challenge Kennedy’s actions


    The Trump administration’s latest nominee to lead the nation’ top public health agency drew frustrated reactions from some U.S. senators on Wednesday when they pressed her on whether she would protect the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from political meddling.

    Dr. Erica Schwartz told the Senate health committee she “will never betray the science” and pledged to use “radical transparency” in a bid to rebuild public trust in the agency. But several senators questioned how she might handle pressure from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has repeatedly moved to alter U.S. vaccine and CDC policies. Schwartz repeatedly declined to dissent from some of those actions.

    Schwartz, 54, is up for director of the Atlanta-based CDC, which is charged with protecting Americans from preventable health threats.

    Her career has largely been spent in military uniform, including in a leadership position at the U.S. Coast Guard where she oversaw the organization’s system of 41 clinics and 150 sick bays — as well as policies promoting vaccinations of service members. She later served as deputy surgeon general, where she helped lead uniformed medical and health professionals posted at the CDC and government health agencies that serve the general public.

    The CDC long enjoyed a sterling international reputation but has been in turmoil since Trump returned to office last year. Largely due to layoffs and resignations, the agency has lost more than 3,000 employees, or more than a quarter of its workforce. Morale has plummeted as a succession of mostly temporary leaders have come and gone — the front office filled with political appointees, many of them with little or no training in medicine or public health.

    “There’s still really good people who work there (at the CDC). They are doing their best to navigate choppy waters,” said Dr. David Margolius, director of Cleveland’s health department and a leader in a U.S. coalition of big city health departments. But CDC no longer seems to the authoritative and communicative lead that it was on outbreaks and other public health emergencies.

    “Basically everybody’s got to kind of choose their own adventure, as opposed to being led by a national public health department,” Margolius said.

    CDC has had several leaders

    The agency is overseen by Kennedy, who was a leading voice in the anti-vaccine movement before he was tapped to lead the CDC and other federal health agencies. Kennedy had promised not to change the nation’s vaccination schedule. But shortly after taking office, Kennedy said he was going to investigate the childhood vaccine schedule and went on to attempt a substantial rewrite of vaccine recommendations for kids. Some of those efforts were put on hold earlier this year by a federal judge.

    The administration’s first pick to run the CDC was former Florida congressman Dr. David Weldon, but his March 2025 Senate confirmation hearing was canceled an hour before it was to begin. Weldon said at the time that he’d been told not enough senators were willing to vote for him.

    The White House then moved on to Susan Monarez, who had been serving as the CDC’s acting director. Monarez was confirmed by the Senate, but she was ousted in less than a month. Trump administration officials said she wasn’t aligned with their agenda so they terminated her.

    Several key CDC scientific leaders resigned in protest, saying Monarez’s dismissal dashed their hopes that a CDC director would be able to guard against political meddling in the agency’s scientific research and health recommendations.

    Since then, there’s been a revolving door in agency leadership, with the short-term role of acting director being passed from one Washington-based HHS official to another. National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya has been overseeing the CDC most recently.

    Schwartz said she was unaware of actions that hurt the CDC

    On Wednesday, some senators suggested Schwartz should follow Monarez’s example, and they asked her about actions Kennedy has taken that have affected CDC.

    Schwartz said she was unaware that CDC programs that worked to prevent smoking and promote vaccinations had been curtailed. She declined to commit to taking down a CDC website that suggests there’s a link between childhood vaccines and autism (she said she had not seen it), though she agreed existing medical evidence has not found a link.

    Sen. Maggie Hassan, a New Hampshire Democrat, asked if she would — if Kennedy ordered her — suspend promotion of a flu vaccination campaign during a deadly flu season.

    “Senator, I don’t speak in hypotheticals,” Schwartz responded.

    “It isn’t hypothetical. It happened,” said Hassan, referring to internal CDC emails, released by Sen. Bernie Sanders last month, that documented such a directive from Kennedy to CDC staff last year.

    Schwartz said she agreed that CDC should prioritize responding to infectious diseases. “I think over time, the CDC has had some mission creep, and it’s trying to be all things to all people,” she said.

    But she also agreed to requests from Republican senators to — if confirmed — look into whether AI data centers cause health problems and into the possibility of establishing a World Trade Center Health Program clinical center in Florida.

    Senators also heard from nominee overseeing health emergency preparedness

    In April, Trump nominated Schwartz, calling her “incredibly talented.” In a congressional hearing in April, Kennedy said he approved of the choice, but refused to commit to supporting whatever vaccine guidance she might issue.

    Last month, Schwartz filed letters with the government that address her finances and potential conflicts of interest. She wrote that if confirmed, she will leave her current job with UnitedHealth Group, where she’s making about $850,000 in salary and bonus money and cash out her stock options. She also will resign from the board of directors of Butterfly Network Inc., a Massachusetts company that makes ultrasound devices; from the board of Atlanta-based Aveanna Healthcare, a medical home care provider; and from the board of the Florida-based Searching for Solutions Institute.

    At Wednesday’s hearing, senators also considered the nomination of Sean Kaufman as the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, or ASPR. That job entails overseeing preparations and response to public health emergencies and disasters.

    Last year, the Trump administration announced a plan to bring those responsibilities under CDC, but the dramatic HHS restructuring has not happened.

    The assistant secretary’s office is involved in decisions about funding next-generation vaccines against pandemic flu or other infectious disease threats. In postings on LinkedIn, Kaufman has made comments cheered by vaccine skeptics, arguing against hepatitis B vaccinations for newborns and saying he served as an expert witness to advocate for people who refused the COVID-19 vaccine.

    On Wednesday, Kaufman faced questions about past social media posts, including one in which he expressed hatred for the CDC. He also repeatedly was asked about his support of a Trump administration decision last year to cancel 22 projects, totaling $500 million, to develop vaccines using mRNA technology.

    Infectious disease experts say the mRNA technology used in vaccines is safe, and they credit its development during the first Trump administration with slowing the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. Future pandemics, they warned, will be harder to stop without the help of mRNA.

    Kaufman said he supported mRNA technology and believes COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective, but said it made sense to study work that’s been done so far before, including learning more about any side effects.

    Sen. John Hickenlooper, a Colorado Democrat, said such evaluations are the responsibility of other federal offices — not ASPR. He also said it may slow the nation’s ability to respond to emerging new infectious threats.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.


  • Faint new planet is revealed around a young star after a decade in hiding


    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Astronomers have discovered a faint, elusive planet orbiting a young star after more than a decade of cosmic hide-and-seek.

    In an unusual twist, two groups working independently detected the cold gas giant a few days apart late last year using different telescopes. It’s the dimmest planet ever directly imaged from Earth, scientists reported Wednesday.

    A Scottish and German-led team spied the new planet around the star Beta Pictoris using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, then dug through archives to confirm its orbit. The planet had remained hidden in the data all this time, overshadowed by its considerably brighter star and two companion planets.

    “It was very much playing hide-and-seek for 11 years,” said the European Southern Observatory’s Markus Bonse, co-leader of the first team.

    The California-led team made the discovery with NASA’s Webb Space Telescope. Two observations were all it took with Webb, the biggest and most powerful telescope ever launched into space. Both teams reported their findings in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

    The find was serendipitous. Each team was studying one of the star’s already identified planets when they spotted a less massive one — 100 times fainter — lurking farther out. They deliberately kept their work from one another so as not to bias the results.

    The new planet is slightly bigger than Jupiter and takes 91 years to orbit its star, a little longer than it takes Uranus to orbit our sun. Born into a star system that’s barely 20 million years old — a kid compared to the sun’s 4.5 billion-year-old neighborhood — the planet is probably similar to a much younger Jupiter, said the University of California San Diego’s Aidan Gibbs, who led the second team.

    “The giant planets have formed, but smaller terrestrial planets could still be forming,” Gibbs said in an email. Beta Pictoris “is probably our best look at a planetary system just after it has formed and is still in the process of stabilizing” from hurtling asteroids and comets.

    Beta Pictoris is located in the easel-shaped southern constellation Pictor, or painter, and 63 light-years from Earth. A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles (more than 9 trillion kilometers).

    Fewer than 100 of the more than 6,000 confirmed exoplanets — planets around other stars — have been detected through direct imaging, according to NASA. Most were found while passing in front of their star, briefly dimming it.

    “We’ve now built a picture of this planet,” the University of Edinburgh’s Ben Sutlieff said in an email, “and we are very excited to see what more can be learned about it.”

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.


  • Study shows a blood test can help identify healthy people at high risk for Alzheimer’s disease


    WASHINGTON (AP) — A blood test may predict if apparently healthy older adults are likely to develop Alzheimer’s symptoms in the next five or 10 years, researchers reported Wednesday.

    That information could be reassuring or terrifying, but for now it’s a potential tool to speed drug development by helping to identify and enroll high-risk people into studies of possible Alzheimer’s treatments or preventive strategies.

    Already large clinical trials are testing if certain drugs could prevent or at least delay the disease — and if any of those pan out, doctors will need an easy way to tell who should try them.

    The scientists behind the new study stress that it’s too soon for healthy people to seek out the so-called p-tau217 test, which is currently used to help diagnose whether people experiencing cognitive problems have Alzheimer’s or another disorder.

    “Wait and get tested when you can potentially do something about it,” stressed Dr. Reisa Sperling of the Mass General Brigham Neuroscience Institute, the study’s senior author. “At this point it wouldn’t change what I would tell someone to do. I’d still tell them to eat well, sleep well, exercise a lot and stay engaged.”

    The new findings showed that symptom-free older adults who harbored very high levels of p-tau217 had a 38% risk of developing cognitive impairment over five years. That risk grew to 78% by 10 years.

    The research was published in JAMA and presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in London.

    It’s not clear exactly what causes Alzheimer’s, but its telltale markers are brain-clogging amyloid plaques and neuron-killing tau tangles. The p-tau217 test measures a form of tau that correlates with how much plaque buildup someone has and gives a hint about tangles, Sperling said.

    The Mass General Brigham team analyzed data from 2,684 older adults who were healthy when they’d joined some long-running Alzheimer’s studies, receiving the p-tau217 blood test at enrollment and yearly cognitive checkups. Between the earliest enrollment in 2004 and last year, about 478 had developed cognitive impairment.

    Study participants with very low p-tau217 levels likewise had a low risk of developing cognitive impairment over the five- to 10-year period.

    There’s a conundrum in predicting Alzheimer’s: Lots of people harbor high levels of amyloid plaques yet never get dementia. A leading theory is that at some point amyloid buildup triggers an abnormal type of tau to form tangles, leading to symptoms.

    Sperling said the blood test data offers some new clues. While different intermediate levels of p-tau217 signaled progressive risk, only the very highest level seemed to correlate with other evidence about that tipping point.

    “This is a gradual process where amyloid and tau build up in the brain and this blood-based biomarker is telling you how far you are in that process,” she said.

    Scientists not involved in the study praised it but also offered some reasons to be cautious. One is that only a small fraction of study participants had been tracked for a full decade, so there’s less confidence in the 10-year risk estimate than the five-year risk estimate.

    Also, the predictions could be clouded by other factors — older people may be at risk of dying from something else, or have heart-related problems that can cause vascular dementia rather than Alzheimer’s, noted Drs. Suzanne Schindler of Washington University in St. Louis and David Wolk of the University of Pennsylvania in a commentary published in JAMA.

    The blood tests “are not yet precise enough to guide individualized prognosis,” wrote Schindler, who also studies p-tau217’s prognostic potential, and Wolk. Still, they said the new work has “provided a crucial piece of the puzzle.”

    Already “we have people coming saying, ‘I want this blood test. I have a family history of Alzheimer’s disease,’” said Jessica Langbaum of the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute in Phoenix, something she strongly discourages — for now.

    “These findings are quite strong,” Langbaum added, and a predictive blood test would be “really important” — but only if ongoing studies eventually find a drug that could help people before symptoms begin.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.


  • Mystery bidder buys T. rex nicknamed ‘Gus’ for a record $50 million


    NEW YORK (AP) — A Tyrannosaurus rex fossil billed as one of the world’s largest and most complete specimens was sold for a record $50.1 million Tuesday to a mystery bidder.

    Sotheby’s said the 67-million-year-old fossil, nicknamed “Gus,” is now the most expensive set of dinosaur bones ever auctioned off, besting the almost $45 million price tag for a nearly complete stegosaurus sold by the same New York auction house in 2024. The previous record holder had been a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton nicknamed “Stan” that sold for nearly $32 million in 2020.

    “Gus is not only an exceptional find, but a specimen that’s been excavated, documented, prepared, and cared for with real excellence,” Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby’s vice chair, said after the sale was completed. “The market responds when great specimens are taken care of in the right way.”

    Why the bidding for this T. rex was intense

    Standing upright with its tail extended and right foot slightly raised, “Gus” is an adult dinosaur specimen measuring about 12 ½ feet (3.8 meters) tall and 38 feet (11.5 meters) long.

    He’s about 61% complete, with what Sotheby’s describes as an “exceptionally preserved” skull including a gaping jaw of powerful teeth, two “well represented” feet and a number of rarely found bones, including a furcula, or wishbone.

    The fossil was discovered in 2021 on a ranch in South Dakota and named in honor of property owner Gary Licking, who died during the roughly five year excavation, restoration and mounting process.

    The auction house said the winner, who participated by phone and wants to remain anonymous, outbid six other prospective buyers during Tuesday’s 10-minute bidding battle. The piece had been estimated to fetch anywhere from $20 to $30 million ahead of the sale.

    “Try a bigger bite,” auctioneer Phyllis Kao cajoled the bidders at one point during the auction, which was conducted live and online. “It’s a T. rex, after all.”

    Scientists want ‘Gus’ on public display

    The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, an advocacy group of scientists, scholars and students, said scientifically significant fossils such as “Gus” should be publicly displayed in museums and other research institutions so that they can be “preserved, documented, and accessible for future generations.”

    “Our hope is that the new owner recognizes the extraordinary scientific and educational value of Gus the T. rex and that they aim to keep it in the public trust by immediately donating it to an accredited natural history museum,” Kristi Curry Rogers, the society’s president-elect, said in a statement Tuesday. “That outcome would ensure that this remarkable specimen continues to advance science, rather than becoming unavailable for study.”

    Indeed, “Apex,” the stegosaurus, the previous dinosaur fossil record-holder, is currently on long-term loan to the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. “Sue” the T. rex, the first dinosaur ever sold at auction in 1997, also by Sotheby’s, is a centerpiece of the Field Museum in Chicago.

    And “Stan” is on display at the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi, posed in combat with another fossilized T. rex over the remains of a triceratops.

    A Cretaceous king and Hollywood staple

    Tyrannosaurus rex, whose name roughly translates to “King of the Tyrant Lizards,” stood firmly at the top of the food chain when it ruled during the late Cretaceous period.

    With its fearsome jawline and comically stubby arms, it has become the most recognizable and beloved of the dinosaurs, depicted in everything from children’s programs like Barney, the purple T. rex, to the enduring “Jurassic Park” movie franchise.

    The great beasts roamed what is today western North America, during a time when the region boasted “warm climates, high sea levels, and rich coastal floodplains” that allowed their primary prey, giant herbivores like the triceratops, to flourish, according to Sotheby’s.